xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In November, police in Brooklyn, N.Y., set a trap and arrested a 44-year-old man and his 22-year-old associate for having kidnapped a teenager earlier in the day and having sought a $20,000 ransom from his mother; the sting was set up after the men, for some reason, released their victim (who went straight home) but continued to demand the ransom.
According to a December Miami Herald story, the condition of museum-goers who grow faint or suffer anxiety attacks while viewing art (or viewing too much in a short time) has a name, Stendhal’s syndrome, that, although rare, has been studied for almost 200 years.
Timothy Paul Kootenay, 43, jailed in Aspen, Colo., in November on a California warrant for probation violation, said he would fight extradition on the ground that he is a citizen of the notorious “Republic of Texas” and that, actually, Aspen and Vail are located on a sliver of land that is also part of the Texas nation. Kootenay’s separatist colleagues (some of whom have taken up arms) believe that Texas was never legally annexed by the United States and is thus a sovereign nation that should respond only to international law.
In a deposition earlier this year as part of his divorce proceedings (and released in November), the president’s brother, Neil Bush, admitted that he had had sex with several women while on business trips in Asia, but that he did not seek them out, insisting that they simply came to his door. Asked his ex-wife’s lawyer, “Mr. Bush, you have to admit it’s a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her.” Responded Bush, “It was very unusual.”
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD